no one else will have me like you do
by gailpeck
Summary: "Her kisses are just a little bit sweeter as he pulls her close and tells her he could love her forever, if she'd let him." Four seasons and he loves her during every single one. Jake/Marley, headcanon


**just coping. i have no words. at least these two brought me some joy and distracted me for a little while. please review, it'd mean a lot.**

**i own nothing. title is from 23 by jimmy eat world and song reference is from gavin degraw with the song soldier.**

x

_my aim is so true i wanna show you_

_i'll try forever, i'm never gonna say surrender_

Spring is when he first learns he loves her, so.

He finds himself going to all of his classes and making his homework and not getting into any fights because one day when it had rained for a while but then the sun broke through the clouds and this beautiful rainbow had appeared, she looked over at him and took the ice pack off his bruised cheek bone and told him with a sad smile, _I know you can be better, Jake _— _I know, so_.

(He even finds himself waking up on time on saturdays so they can watch the early morning cartoons together because she's a morning person, _of course_, and she laughs at them and it's the best sound he's ever heard and she always makes him breakfast and she buys three different kinds of cereal and they mix them together and share equal looks of disgust as they decide every saturday, that those three brands combined, were not a real success but they'll continue trying because now it's kind of their thing and he likes having things with her.)

He studies in biology that spring is when new things get born and they grow and he thinks of Marley, and he thinks of how he loves her, and he thinks that's the first time anything school related has ever made so much sense.

x

He finds out he loves her most in summer.

There's something about the bright sunlight that makes her hair extra shiny when they sit outside in the burning sun with the dry grass tickling their legs and play silly games like _guess who?_ because they can't afford to go out and and she insists on always choosing a girl because she's a self proclaimed feminist which just makes it that much easier to win from her (although he choses not to).

Something about the clammy, muggy breeze that makes him groan and blurt out weird things he normally wouldn't like '_how come there's never any cold waves_' ('that's called winter, Jake') or '_why does the sun even exist_' ('because we'd be dead if it didn't') while they're stripped down to their underwear and brought in all the fans they could find in the house including a little one that used to be part of a piece of candy once and try to cool off with their self made ice cubes shaped like flowers and hearts because she loves that stuff and that makes her smile just a little bit brighter as she ridicules him.

Long days spent in the community pool from which he spends half convincing her she looks fine and nobody's watching her and that, seriously, this ice cream is the best he's ever had and she should have one, too, make him realize that she sees flaws where he sees perfection but the other half of the days she spends laughing and splashing him with water and making his heart do this funny twinge in his chest — they make it all worth it.

The summernight rainfalls that makes him love her just that little tiny bit more as she dances around in the moonlight, not caring that her make-up's running and her hair's a mess and makes him dance along to the crappiest music he's ever heard but secretly loves because it's from her favorite band and that makes her kisses just a little bit sweeter as he pulls her close and tells her he could _love her forever, if she'd let him_.

x

Autumn is when honestly, things change. Or at least, he notices they have.

She doesn't hesitate when she pulls of her shirt when they're making out, doesn't ask if he wants to put the lights out, doesn't push his hands off, doesn't smile nervously. She connects their fingers when they walk down the street now, without him having to grab her hand first. She smiles at the girls that talk to him and flirt with him (because she trusts him with her heart and she wants to be the better person and she has the one thing they don't; his heart and he loves _her_) and never mentions them again, which is cool, 'cause he wouldn't want her to be one of those smothering psycho girlfriends. She kisses him. Like really, honestly, for real, kisses him. Because she wants to.

(And it feels good, to be wanted like that, not just for his bad boy reputation that will surely piss off mommy and daddy, or because of rumours of how good he is in bed, or because they just want to see what it's like you know, the attraction but she genuinely wants him. All of him. Even the bad parts.)

He does, too — change, or he has, changed, that is.

He no longer tells people at parties '_this is Marley_' just says '_this is my girlfriend, Marley_' because he couldn't care less what anyone thinks. He gets jealous of every person that talks to her, girl or boy, and he doesn't know why because with other girls he never cared and it's not like he doesn't trust her, because he does, but it's them he doesn't trust (because honestly, have you seen his girl?) but he tries not to let her notice because he doesn't want to be the _smothering psycho boyfriend_. He's happy. He's happy for the first time in a long time and that's a big change because it used to be just him and his mom and dancing and he didn't have any friends and he got by with a one night stand here and there and he had nothing to look forward to, not really and sometimes he just got so angry and he couldn't stop and he would just punch random people because they cut to the front of the line or accidentally brushed their arm against his in the hallway at school and now, he just — he isn't angry anymore. He's happy. And that's good, _so good_.

Autumn is also when things die, or at least, that's what he read about in some poem in English Lit. (It's what Marley explained to him while they made homework because he isn't dumb, but sometimes he needs a little help with the vague, _boring_ stuff and besides, he likes it when she leans close and he can smell her hair and then he says something stupid and she kisses him and she tastes like strawberry and she calls him cute and he defends himself because _dudes' are not cute _and they end up making out after an hour)

Sometimes they fight and he thinks this might be it — this might be the moment it crumbles right in front of him because he couldn't hold in his words, because he hurt her too much this time, because he can't look at her without his heart breaking, because they've outrun their time together — this might be the moment it dies, they die, their love dies, a part of him dies, and he finds himself afraid he won't love her anymore because he couldn't imagine ever not loving her, having her, being with her.

Autumn tries, but he conquers and they survive.

x

Winter is when the insecurities and doubts get to them, winter is when he flirts with other girls when he shouldn't because _good things don't last_ and winter is when she chooses Ryder over him because they spend their entire weekends together and he's her friend, too, and winter is when what could be so great — isn't.

Winter is also when it gets dark so early and doesn't stop being dark until very late and it's warm hugs at school in the early mornings and days spent cuddled close together because it's so very cold but it's really not because he feels so, so warm and it's hot chocolate with whip cream moustaches that he gets to kiss off and it's snowball fights in which she _always_ cheats and that leave his hands cold but his heart warm and he knows that in the winter, he does love her so very much, too.

x

Every New Year , when he kisses her at exactly 12:00 a.m. and he honestly feels like they're the only two people in the room, screw that — in the entire universe, (the same feeling he gets every morning he wakes up next to her and she kisses his shoulder to wake him up, every three seconds in between classes he spends holding her hand and listening to the newest gossip he couldn't care less about, everytime she smiles at him and makes his stomach turn in a good way, every time he lays his eyes on her) he praises himself lucky that he gets to have her every day of the year, for good or bad, forever.


End file.
